The events of this chapter take place during Seven Reasons.
Boom!
Bang!
Crash!
Thunk!
"Ha! I gave you a Pneumothorax!" Shaun gleefully shouts after finally performing the right button combination to do Goro's special move in Mortal Kombat. Which to his delight was enough to turn the tides of the fictional battle over in his favor.
"Ahhh! No!" Lea melodramatically exclaims as the last of Kitana's life meter drains. Pride nonetheless clearly evident in her voice over how good Shaun had gotten at playing video games. She remembers the first time he came over to her apartment he wouldn't even touch her Playstation, now look at him.
"Press back, forward, down, circle and see what happens." Lea suggests to her now-boyfriend who, like clockwork, does exactly as told, watching as the match ends with Goro committing the most over the top, medically dubious Fatality in the history of anything. Shaun and Lea unable to do anything but laugh hysterically over the absurdity of it.
"This game is so violent, why do we play it?" She asks, trying to catch her breath.
"Because it's fun!" Shaun replies in such a matter of fact tone Lea couldn't help but start laughing again.
"You make me laugh, Shaun." She warmly tells him.
"And you make me happy, Lea." Shaun responds right back without taking his eyes off the screen. Lea's head turning sideways as she smiles, her heart melting like butter.
They had only been dating for a couple of days but Lea already knew she had made the right choice saying yes to Shaun, if not just for moments like this. Lea scooches over to Shaun's side of the couch and gently rests herself on his lap. His body went firm and he looked a little bit confused about what she was doing until getting kissed on the lips, then he seemed to enjoy himself again until Lea started ruffling his well combed hair, managing to turn it slightly less kept. "Gottcha!" she laughs as plops herself back onto the couch.
"That's not fair. If I knew you were going to do that I wouldn't have let you onto my lap." Shaun firmly insists.
"I know, that's the point." Lea teasingly replies, leaning on his shoulder while giggling at the mischief she just caused.
Shaun's words might've implied that he was annoyed by what happened, but those spontaneous little things that Lea was always doing like that, it was the reason he loved being with her so much.
It was 12:00 P.M. sharp and Aaron Glassman was firmly planted in his desk's leather chair going through a medium sized stack of paper. He had been working nonstop since he got in at eight and was almost done with everything he needed to do. It was a rare occasion for the President of the hospital to have actual free time. At this rate he could even have the rest of the afternoon off assuming he doesn't get called in for brain surgery at the last minute. Could go golfing, see a movie, check in on Shaun, whatever he wanted.
Speak of the devil, just at that moment Shaun enters his office, looking much less upset than Aaron anticipated. Could just be excited, we always have lunch together on Mondays. "Hi Shaun, I just need fifteen more minutes and then I'll walk with you to the Cafeteria." Glassman announces, continuing to scribble away his signature on some letter of recommendation for a Doctor he barely knew.
"We can't have lunch together today." Shaun informs him shortly after.
Glassman was confused. It wasn't the first time they'd broken their streak, but he was always the one who initiated it, never Shaun. "Why not?"
"I asked Lea to be my girlfriend this weekend and she said yes." Shaun blushed confessing to his mentor, fidgeting his fingers together while stating it. "I'm going to have lunch with her at her job, I came to tell you in person."
Glassman couldn't believe it, Lea actually said yes and now Shaun was ditching him to be with her. Shaun's not ready for this, he's moving too fast. Glassman barely even knew Lea, much less enough to let her be with his adoptive son, or even to date him for that matter! No, this isn't acceptable, I have to do something. Then he remembered, of all the days he's about to have the afternoon off, he can go out to lunch too, be a fly on the wall.
"I could come with you guys. Get to know your new girlfriend, I've got some spare time, it could be fun." Glassman suggests harmlessly, all of what he said actually true.
"That's a great idea! I'll text Lea and ask her right now." Shaun pulls out his IPhone and then stands there slowly typing out a much longer than necessary text message as Glassman sits waiting. Hearing the sound of his message being sent and a reply coming through seconds later.
"She said yes." Shaun proudly clarifies, Glassman letting out a coy smile of approval.
"You're gonna love this, the food at my office is amazing." Lea valiantly announces leading Shaun and Glassman into a state of the art Cafeteria. Complete with personal chefs, a Pasta Bar, a Deli, and even what looks like Spanish Tapas. Shaun had always thought Lea deserved better than to work here despite its privileges. But if he had known about this food court, maybe he wouldn't have been quite so passionate in that stance.
"I'm going to get pancakes." He says, quickly getting in line for the Pancake/Waffle making station, Lea chuckling with amusement over Shaun's decisiveness about what he wanted to eat, despite a literal sea of choices.
"So, will any of your coworkers be joining us?" Glassman suspiciously asks, trying to get a feel for what Lea's place on the social hierarchy here might be.
"Why?" She asks, apparently taken off guard by his question.
"Just wondering who you'd hang out with if me and Shaun didn't come today." He answers candidly.
Lea then started to realize what he was doing and took a deep breath before answering. "Look, I know we got off on the wrong foot the other day, and that you really care about Shaun. But I'm not going to hurt him, I don't want to." Glassman still looked unimpressed by her response and Lea knew he wouldn't take her on her word alone, he just had to see it to believe it.
"I'm in the mood for Thai. How about you, Glassy? Want me to get you anything?" She asks politely, trying to hide her offense at his assumptions. "No, thank you." He quickly replies as Lea gets her tray off the rack before getting in line. Glassman from that interaction having gotten his answer.
No friends, huh? What's the deal with that?
After they all get their food, the trio meet again in the Atrium and sit down together to eat. Shaun revealed to have ordered a stack of cocoa pancakes with white chocolate chips and maple syrup. It wasn't the most normal looking lunch, but if he was happy with it, no one seemed to mind. Lea, sitting on the other side of the table opposite to him had opted for spicy noodles, which Shaun thought smelled good, but knew he wouldn't be able to stand if he tried it. He had zero tolerance for anything even remotely spicy. Glassman was the last to sit down at the end of the table, next to Shaun but opposite to no one, having just ordered a lobster roll with green tea on the side.
"My boss has been jerkier today than usual." Lea out of the blue starts off the table conservation with, her gaze though only acknowledging Shaun. "I accidentally left my keys to the computer lab at home this morning, and instead of just letting me borrow a spare for the day, he actually yelled at me in front of everyone for forgetting and forbid me from borrowing another. Like, who does that?" Lea demands to know raising her voice, clearly getting worked up over just the memory of the ordeal.
"That's both inefficient and impractical. You can't perform your day's work load without access to all the company's resources." Shaun observes as Lea's eyes light up at the sound of Shaun's vindicating assessment.
"Exactly. I was in the middle of a blueprint that I can't finish now since I don't have the software on my laptop. Now it's going to take me another day, at least, to finish it. Wouldn't you think my boss would be the one person who wants me to get my work done faster?" Lea genuinely wonders.
"Maybe next time you should make it a priority to remember your keys then." Glassman states getting both Lea and Shaun's attention simultaneously.
"I'm sorry?" Lea politely asks trying to make sure she heard him right, because it sounded like Glassman was just defending her asshole boss right in front of her.
"If your keys were really a priority you wouldn't ever forget to bring them. You don't forget to put your shoes on or drink a cup of coffee in the morning, why would you forget something you need for your job? Your boss is just trying to teach that to you." He clarifies, doubling down on his position.
Lea looked at Glassman, speechless and flabbergasted, was he literally insinuating she was some flaky dumbass right in front of her face? How could he even think that, he barely knows her. "First of all, I do forget things like that all the time. It happens. Second of all, just because I forget something doesn't mean it doesn't matter to me, and I'm sick of everyone acting like it does!"
Shaun was clearly becoming uncomfortable with the brewing conflict and fortunately for him, the conversation winded down as Glassman neglected to respond to Lea's outburst. Once again having learned all he needed to from her responses. She's clearly irresponsible, can barely handle herself, there's no way she'll be able to deal with Shaun's idiosyncrasies.
The table, meanwhile, had fallen into an awkward silence and with everyone having eaten their meals there was nothing to distract from it.
"We need to do something fun." Lea insists trying to ease the tension and hopefully work as a last ditch attempt to turn this day around. "Do you like cars?" She wonders, turning her gaze towards Glassman.
He wanted to say no, but that would've been a lie, he loves cars. "Yeah, I know a thing or two about them."
Lea smirks with satisfaction, like she knew he was downplaying it to save face. "We still have twenty more minutes left of lunch, come on!" She says leading Shaun and Glassman to the Sprint-Kart track. "These are electric Sprint-Karts that we use to test our device prototypes. But during breaks people can race around in them on the track too, it's like Mario Kart in real life." Lea explains taking out three helmets for each of them to wear.
"This is a bad idea." Shaun insists remembering the last time he tried to drive with Lea.
"No more negativity! This is going to be great, Shaun. It's impossible to get hurt in one of these." Lea promises helping place the helmet over his head while Glassman simply does it for himself without a word of hesitation. Once the three of them are finally ready Lea puts their names into the scoreboard and they get positioned into their vehicles. The timer tediously counting down 3...2...1… until displaying the word GO! Lea and Glassman both flooring the accelerator as they take off, with Shaun trailing behind at a much slower speed.
Lea and Glassy stayed neck to neck the entire race, only occasionally one getting ahead of the other. Glassman wasn't sure what exactly he was trying to prove by winning this race, but if it had anything to do with figuratively establishing his dominance as the most significant influence in Shaun's life, he wasn't about to give up without a fight.
But there was a third wheel on the race track. Contrasting his girlfriend and mentor, Shaun could not have cared less about winning if he tried. Not only did his speed never increase throughout the duration of his race, by the end he even somehow got misdirected and ended up driving the wrong way. Lea tried to give a hand signal to tell him to turn around, but Shaun either didn't see it or didn't care, because he kept going all the same.
Lea decided at this point to just let him be and kept driving, smoothly passing the finish line and getting first place over Glassy.
"That was awesome!" Lea yells out while running over to help Shaun out of his Kart. "It was really fast." Shaun comments.
"You barely even moved." She reminds him in a semi-serious tone.
"Break time's almost over, Shaun, we should head back to St. Bonaventure soon" Glassman informs his adoptive son while walking by. His defeat on the race track hurting more than it had any rational reason to.
"Thank you Lea for… inviting us, the lobster was good." Glassman tells her out of nothing more than social obligation.
"The pleasure was all mine, Glassy." Lea tells him with the same intent, afterwards getting on her toes to give Shaun a proper hug around his neck, which he promptly breaks out of after a couple seconds.
"I will see you again tonight!" He nonetheless assures her.
"Not if I see you first." Lea quips back, Glassman continuing to remind Shaun they have to leave right now.
St. Bonaventure Hospital hadn't changed at all in the time that Shaun had left and returned. The smell of hand sanitizer and febreeze were still ever present throughout the entire complex with Doctors, Patients, and Nurses occupying every available hallway and seating area.
Glassman had offered to walk with Shaun to his upcoming surgery, stepping into an empty elevator with him impatiently pressing the button to the necessary floor.
"Do you like Lea?" Shaun asks him avoiding his eye contact though still clearly anxious for an answer.
"To be perfectly honest with you Shaun, no, not really. She seems like a bad influence and personally I'd rather you date someone else." Glassman honestly tells him. He tried to get in the habit of talking straight to Shaun, telling him exactly how he feels, leaving nothing to interpretation.
"But I like the way I feel around Lea. I don't want to date anyone else, I want to be with her." Shaun's disappointment in Glassman's opinion clearly evidenced by his hands folding together and gaze moving down to his feet as opposed to its usual forward.
"Yeah well, that's a decision you'll have to make for yourself." Glassman not only verbally informs Shaun, but also himself. Clearly he was in a losing battle against Lea, he had been since the day Shaun ran away, and it took him making a fool of himself by getting in a juvenile go-kart race a half hour ago just to see that. Glassman's done everything he can, Shaun's an adult now and he has to be treated like one.
The elevator doors finally open and Glassman walks out first, Shaun anxiously following to continue their conversation. "Do I need to report Doctor Melendez for puncturing a patient's bronchus during a routine bronchoscopy? The protocol clearly states that I should, but seeing how Jared is being treated, will Doctor Melendez treat me badly too if I report him?"
Glassman almost reflexively was about to answer but reminded himself of the conversation they just had, he couldn't be inconsistent. If Shaun's going to be an adult he needs to take care of himself in every aspect of life, not just the ones Glassman didn't personally approve of. "You know what, Shaun. You should start making all your decisions for yourself from here on out. That's what we agreed upon the other day in the lobby, right?"
Shaun didn't know what to say, Doctor Glassman had never refused to give him advice before, especially not with something related to his job. He had wanted to be given more independence, but not like this. Shaun still cared about Glassman and wanted him to be a part of his life, that feeling never changed or went away, even after the slap.
"Can we have lunch tomorrow then? You don't have to be there as a father, you can just be a friend." Shaun cleverly suggests to him.
"Shaun, I raised you for the better part of twenty years, and when I'm with you I can't help but be a father. That's not what you need right now, so no, I don't think we should have breakfast together tomorrow." Glassman right after he finishes quickly making his leave, he couldn't bear to see Shaun upset over it, because deep down he was feeling the exact same way. This was going to be a hard transition for both of them, maybe the type of thing he was exactly afraid of when Shaun started dating Lea, or maybe just an unfortunate side effect. Either way, it was necessary and Glassman knew he had to stay strong, for both of them.
Lea always got off work way earlier than Shaun did on weekdays, one could say it was a silver lining to her job over his, and she used to think it was too. But after they started dating it meant waiting hours until seeing him, and even then they could only be together for a little while before it was then time to go to bed. Not ideal, but it could be managed. It just means we have to make our time count, Lea thought. She was more a night owl anyway, and Shaun always made it worth it. But until then, Lea was on her own.
She eventually got hungry and decided to make dinner for herself, but while eating it couldn't stop thinking about how she had been treated today by Glassman. It was obvious he had an issue with her dating Shaun. This was new territory for Lea, usually she never even had to meet her boyfriend's parents at all, much less try and impress them. Out of work drummers usually have strained relationships with their families more often than not. Is he like that with everyone or just me? Lea thought.
He seemed really overprotective and nebbish the day he broke in, but it still might be me. Ugh, I'm such a mess, and old fashioned Dads like him can always somehow sense that.
Lea didn't like this feeling of uncertainty. To get her mind onto something else she decided to boot up the Playstation and start playing The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim on it. Maybe find something interesting for when Shaun comes over. It was a single player game but he always liked to watch her play it, it was one of the only things they did together when she first invited him to her apartment. He said he liked it most when she explored, that Skyrim reminded him of Wyoming. It'll be fun, she was looking forward to it.
Apparently Skyrim was also the right choice for her other problem, since Lea got into the game for so long that before she knew it someone was already knocking on her door. Butterflies began to emerge in her stomach as she opens it and to the surprise of no one, sees Shaun there waiting for her. "I'm in the middle of this super hard new dungeon in Skyrim I just found near Riften, and I'm never going to be able to beat it unless my boyfriend can cheer me on." Lea says as a cold opening to their impending night, woefully unappreciated by Shaun who quickly lets himself in, obviously under duress about something.
"Doctor Glassman said he doesn't want to be my friend anymore." He announces, his eyes appearing to be puffy and red as though he had been crying. Lea's first reaction was that of excitement, the two of them falling out means Glassy wouldn't awkwardly accompany them for lunch again anytime soon. But then she started to realize what this must mean to Shaun, she knew the history those two had together. He took Shaun in when he couldn't go home, after he lost his brother, whatever happened to make him not even want to be his friend anymore, that must be devastating.
"Shaun, you poor thing, I'm so sorry." Lea whims quickly wrapping herself around his arms in a bear hug while resting her chin on his shoulder. It wasn't meant to be a sexual or romantic hug, but rather a friendly, caring one. The kind that showed she was there for him, without a drop of malice or judgement to show for it.
The love and warmth coming from her had proven to be impossible to resist as Shaun allows it to go on, the only other hug to do so since their first one in the hallway.
"You know what, we don't need to play anything tonight. Let's just talk." Lea whispers sitting down on the couch while Shaun slowly places himself next to her. "Now tell me, what did Glassy do this time?" It's true, Lea had been looking forward to playing Video Games with him, and they were probably going to spend the whole night talking about this, but it was something she was willing to do. Shaun clearly needed love, and Lea had more than enough to give.